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Sunday, February 3, 2019


Epiphany 4C; Jeremiah 1:4-10; Luke 4:21-32; St. Paul’s, 2/3/2019
Jim Melnyk “Dare to Make a Difference”

Most of us are familiar with at least a few of the characters and storylines by A. A. Milne about a young boy named Christopher Robin and his golden-colored honey bear named Winnie the Pooh. Pooh Bear lives in a place called the Hundred Acre Wood along with a number of friends.  One such friend is Eeyore, a rather forlorn-looking donkey with melancholy eyes, drooping ears, and a loosely-tacked-on-tail, who goes about life asking questions like, “Why me?” or making pronouncements like, “It’s all for naught,” or “Pathetic. That’s what it is. Pathetic.”[1]

Once one gets to know Eeyore it’s rather obvious that he always seems to expect disaster to befall him in one form or another. And whenever one of the other animals ask Eeyore to take on anything new, the donkey, who expects the worst to happen, invariably has some excuse as to why he cannot possibly do what is asked of him, or at best, predicts that surely gloom and doom will befall them if they risk doing a new thing.  Eeyore’s fears seem at times to be as big as the Hundred Acre Wood.

Truth be told, each of us has a little bit of Eeyore in us. We resist new things. We do our best to avoid taking risks. We can always come up with a hundred different reasons why we cannot take on a particular task. We hold on as tightly as possible to the past and things as they have always been. We all too often find ourselves reluctant to confront our own fears, and when confronted with the unexpected we ask, “Why me?” I even have a small Eeyore stuffed animal that sits to the side on my computer desk at the church reminding me of the times I chant that age-old mantra, “Why me?”

Well, my friends, this is not a new thing for human beings. We’re in very good company.  Throughout history – whenever the call comes to try a new thing, to go to a new place, to speak a prophetic word, most of the time we humans have raised the cry, “Why me?” Perhaps followed by, “Why not send someone else? You know, someone with more training. Someone with more experience.  Someone with better skills or more suitable qualifications.”

And perhaps this reaction is most common when the call comes from God. Especially if we sense that God’s call will put us at odds with the world around us.

It’s very much like the call God issues to Jeremiah in today’s reading. When a word from God comes to Jeremiah commissioning him to be a prophet to the nations, Jeremiah’s immediate response is to object. Instead of seeing the possibilities, Jeremiah argues that he is inadequate to the task.  In this case he argues that he’s too young. My guess is there are any number of reasons the reluctant prophet could come up with as to why someone else would be better suited to the task at hand.

But, it seems, God knows well the hearts and fears of humankind.  In the very next breath God tells Jeremiah there’s no need to be concerned about his age. Jeremiah is assured that God will give the prophet the words to speak at the appropriate time. And then God says what God repeats to every generation, “Do not be afraid…for I am with you to deliver you.” And, as if that assurance isn’t enough, God gives a sign by touching the mouth of the prophet, thereby giving Jeremiah what he needs to fulfill the call to prophesy. The power given to Jeremiah is awesome indeed: appointed over nations and kingdoms, “to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” I cannot help but consider how challenging and how tempting such a call – such a gift – might be. The hope is the gift and the ability to be a part of God’s dream for this world.  The temptation is assuming one has the power to exercise dominion over others – how easy it might become to abuse, or misuse, such a calling!

And though we live half a world away, in a time far removed from Jeremiah, the same awesome power is ours to wield – for good or for ill. For our words, as well as our actions, have power to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant. Is it any wonder the most sane among us cry out, “Why me?  Why us?” and in our next breath, “God, can’t you send someone else?” Is it any wonder that there are people of faith in every generation who either flee from the call of God as Jeremiah tried to do, or others who see such a calling as an invitation to exert dominion over others?

But, as Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has said many times – quoting his grandmother – “If we’re breathing, God is calling us.”[2] I imagine in much the same way God has called God’s people over the ages.  Perhaps like Jeremiah, it’s the call itself that we fear the most.  We can compare it to the words of Marianne Williamson, words which are often mistakenly attributed to Nelson Mandela:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you “not” to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. It is not just in some of us; it’s in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”[3]

My sisters and brothers, God is calling us – calling us to ministries familiar and new – to people and places we know and have yet to meet or see. We may never be called to speak the same sort of word Jeremiah speaks, but God may well ask us to speak the unexpected – to advocate for those whom we never would guess we would support. We may well be the people destined to pull down systems which oppress God’s people, and in their place plant new ways of living and being together in community. We may well be the very ones called to destroy barriers to things like adequate housing, and healthcare; to reasonable, caring, and humane immigration reform; to both food and job security for everyone.

We might do so by wielding a hammer or paint brush building a house with Habitat for Humanity of Johnston County. Or, to address issues of healthcare or immigration reform, we can put to good use our command of language by writing letters or emails to those elected to public offices, entrusted with promoting the common good. We might find ourselves buying extra groceries at the store to put in our food basket the first Sunday of the month, or working to encourage the building of grocery stores in areas of our community considered food deserts.  If we are an employer or business owner, we can be expansive in our hiring practices.  If we’re younger and still in school, we can make friends with students we notice are without friends or who sit by themselves at lunch time.

Truth be told, any one of us – all of us have gifts and talents that, with God’s help, can be put to work to build up and to plant and maybe even to be prophetic!

It boils down to something Eeyore has been known to say, “A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference.”[4]

Answering the call of God may well cause us to want to ask, “Why me?  Why us?” and to object that we’re just not up to the call.  But if we’re breathing, God is calling us.  And if we struggle with that call – or are tempted to abuse that call – well, God says to us, “Do not be afraid…for I am with you to deliver you.”[5] And that, my friends, is very good news!

[2] Many sermons listened to over the 15 years Michael Curry was Bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina
[4]Thai Nguyen, “Eeyore: A Pessimist’s Guide to a Beautiful Life, December 6, 2017  https://www.huffpost.com/entry/eeyore-a-pessimists-guide_b_6204004 Accessed on January 28, 2019
  
[5] Jeremiah 1:8 (TJSB)
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